chocolate pickles said:
Enslaved: Oddessy To The West. Left off on a pretty bleak, uncertain point (SPOILERS, if you care about a game that's been out a few years now)
You basically discover the up-to-that-point evil slavers are actually alright guys who were trying to put people in a computer simulation (i think?) of pre-war memory's so that they could escape the horror of the post apocalypse through the use of specially designed masks. Monkey, the protagonist, try's one, and is enthralled by the simulation. Trip, his companion, however, destroys the simulation and the guy who made it possible anyway: Leaving the 'slaves' once again stuck in the apocalypse, Trip confused about her actions, and Monkey very quiet.
The thing is, we never learn how this affected either character or their relationship (unlike a certain, more recent game that was remarkably similar), and we never learn of the fates of those trapped in the pyramid. In general, just felt very unresolved.
That actually sounds pretty intriguing... Eh, I'm gonna blame the marketing for that as I usually do for cult-classic games that never really sell well. What was the other game that was similar to it though?
Last Of Us, actually: (Spoilers, again. Sorry, but i have no idea to do the cover-up thing)
Both feature two main characters of the opposite sex (Monkey/Trip and Joel/Ellie), one of which is a fighter who has lost his faith in humanity(Monkey and Joel) and the other is their vulnerable teenage escort (Trip, who is 19, and Ellie, who is 14), who still maintain a somewhat innocent outlook until a traumatic event (Trip's village is attacked by slavers and her father killed, and Ellie narrowly avoids a attempted rape) that forces them to darken and mature significantly.
Over the course of the game, the duo embark on a massive journey (Monkey and Trip travel over 300 miles before the halfway point of the game, and Joel and Ellie's journey encompasses 3 seasons). There environment has been taken over by nature (both feature this idea of nature 'reclaiming' the earth), and they are constantly hounded by an enemy too numerous to completely get rid of (Mechs in Enslaved, and Infected in LOU). At the beginning of said journey, the characters are initially on poor terms (Trip enslaves Monkey, and Joel just doesn't care about Ellie). However, their relationship develops over the course of the game, to the point where the male character won't leave when he gets the chance to (Monkey makes trip turn his slave headband back on when she frees him so that he can stay with her, and Joel decides to take Ellie to the fireflies personally rather than let his brother do it)
At the end of the game, it is revealed not is all as it seems (The slavers actually being good in Enslaved, and the fact that Ellie will die due to the surgery in LOU). A main character then makes a selfish decision (Trip destroys the simulation due to personal rage, and Joel refuses to go ahead with the surgery due to his love for Ellie) that dooms their society (In enslaved, all the slaves will now have to readjust to the harshness of the apocalypse, and in LOU there will most likely never be a vaccine for the epidemic)
Finally, both end with a suggestion of the relationship between the main characters being damaged: Monkey's silence when Trip asks if she did the right thing suggests he doesn't think so, and it implied by Ellie's silence with Joel and the fact she makes him promise everything he told about the fireflies was true (he told her that the fireflies had given up looking for a cure when really, he just wouldn't let them) that she knows he is lying to her).
